One of my favourite take-away meals, pre my attempted clean-living phase, was the lemon chicken you get from every “Chinese” takeaway. (quotation marks used there as I’m quite sure anyone from China would be baffled by the cuisines they serve up). Thinly battered pieces of chicken, coating slightly soggy from sitting in a tinfoil tray covered in sweet and zesty lemon sauce. The sauce always reminded me of lemon curd – and it probably was 🙂 All this was smooshed together with egg fried rice to form an easily shovelable sweet, MSG’y glob of deliciousness. Sigh…….
So many reasons why that’s a No now, but I do still get a fancy for it. Last time I tried it, about a year ago, I was really disappointed. Not sure if my nostaligia/ memory was failing me or if eating real food, and hugely reducing my salt intake, had massively affected my taste buds. Bit like how people who quit smoking have an epiphany when they “taste” a carrot for the first time in years.
The solution came when I spotted a honey and lemon sauce (paleo version) in my new cookbook. No weird ingredients; just honey, lemon and seasonings (I won’t give the whole recipe – buy the book!) with arrowroot to thicken. A-MAZE-ING!
Would have tasted great with a suitably-paleo coated, crispy chicken fillet but I had just poached a chicken that morning (jumped over a fence and everything…) . I pan fried the chicken breasts to heat and give a bit of colour, as poaching does leave everything a tad anaemic, and served it all with a pile of egg-fried cauliflower “rice”. The end result was spot on for flavour but did look a bit beige – I like to think “Authentic” 🙂
